AVMA IN THE NEWS: Week of October 26, 2014

To provide a look at where and how often the AVMA has been mentioned in the media in the past week, the AVMA Media Relations Division has developed this weekly AVMA@Work blog series, “AVMA in the News,” showing the number of times AVMA appeared in the media, as well as a sampling of those hits.

We hope you find these reports informative. As always, we appreciate any questions or feedback you might have on our media relations efforts.

Dallas nurse who overcame Ebola has ‘my best friend at my side again’
Dallas Morning News
. … Bentley was cared for by Dallas Animal Services, in partnership with the Texas Animal Health Commission, Texas A&M University’s College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, the Texas Department of State Health Services, the American Veterinary Medical Association, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. …

Feathers Ruffled. Fur Flies. Lessons Learned From Ebola.
Huffington Post
. … The American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA) noted in a press release October 17 “that, while there has been no reports of dogs or cats getting sick from Ebola, or of pets passing the virus to people or to other animals precautions were still being taken. …”

Aurora’s polarizing pit bull ban up for a vote
Colorado Public Radio
. … But according to the American Veterinary Medical Association, even trained animal shelter staff can make errors in identifying dogs as pit bulls, pointing to a Florida study that asked shelter staff to identify the pit bulls from a group of 120 dogs. Participants labeled 55 dogs as pit bulls, when only 25 were determined by DNA analysis to actually belong to a pit bull breed. …

Dogs also can benefit from knee surgery
Foster’s Daily Democrat (N.H.)
. … Dogs don’t have an ACL, but a similar cranial cruciate ligament, or CrCL. Lirtzman doesn’t believe the numbers of dogs getting knee ligament operations have changed much since figures were published about five years ago in the Journal of the American Veterinary Medical Association. The journal estimated just over a million CrCL surgeries were being done each year. …

Would You Spend $100,000 on the Ultimate Guard Dog?
Playboy
. … Bonnie Beaver, a professor at the Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences and former president of the American Veterinary Medical Association, agrees. She believes if the dogs’ training isn’t maintained they lose it, which can be dangerous. “If the owners aren’t practicing,” she says, “the dogs don’t shut off as easily. …”